# Chinese company building a Burj Khalifa in 9 months

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-company-building-a-burj-khalifa-in-9-months/625214>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 15, 2012, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-company-building-a-burj-khalifa-in-9-months/625214 "2012-06-15T08:01:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2012, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-company-building-a-burj-khalifa-in-9-months/625214/21 "2012-06-16T16:53:09Z")

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They will be able to evacuate it in 15 minutes because no one will be in the building. If they somehow manage to get it built it will be a financial failure.

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**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-company-building-a-burj-khalifa-in-9-months/625214/22 "2012-06-16T17:31:02Z")

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They are not copying the burj. You couldn’t even do that since they’re in different seismic and wind regions. The area is actually fairly low on seismic hazards, so I don’t know why they’d test to a 9.0. That model didn’t look properly scaled, fwiw.

Welding is very common in structural engineering.

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**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2012, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-company-building-a-burj-khalifa-in-9-months/625214/23 "2012-06-16T20:40:14Z")

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> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> I don’t understand how a tall building could be anything but pre-fab. They may pour concrete for floors, but at some height that would become impractical compared to pre-cast slabs. They certainly aren’t going to take raw steel stock and form it hundreds of feet up in the air.

The company in question prefabs EVERYTHING including the duct work.

So while the construction time is impressive it doesn’t include pouring the foundation or the time spent in the factory. It’s like building a B-24 in an hour. All the stuff that goes into it was built ahead of time.

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